3 ms·

Because it's written in python

by typon 5y ago

CogitoCogito 5y ago
Re-writing it in C wouldn't automatically make much of a difference. Of course a C implementation wouldn't be slower (at minimum you could flatten out the byte-code sequence and use the generated C api calls), but it wouldn't necessarily be noticeably faster. Given the features of the python version, it might very well be the case that writing the same code in C wouldn't speed things up if the same use-cases were supported. Though I would be curious to know if it actually would speed up significantly.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > Re-writing it in C wouldn't automatically make much of a difference. It probably would even with a line-for-line translation: you’d save all the interpreter overhead, function calls if there are any (I did not look), and most refcount traffic.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    Maybe. It's true you would save a certain amount of interpreter overhead and some refcount. How much that would help is not clear to me. So really I just see any speedups pure speculation honestly. Besides the interesting question isn't really whether it speeds up or not (it obviously will speed up at least a little bit with any non-sane implementation), but how _much_ it speeds up. If you gain 1% honestly who cares. If you gain 30%, then that's more interesting. And how close can you get with this more general version in C to the version in the blog post that is using a simplified implementation without all the extra features. Anyway I am curious to know the answer, but I don't personally feel like writing out the implementation. If you do, I'd be interested in seeing the results.
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      I'm a bit amazed I've received downvotes for this post. I'm saying (1) you don't know how much this will speed up by going to C without trying it and (2) you don't know how much of the speed up in this case comes from the OP having written it in C and how much comes from the fact that it's a different algorithm. The fact that anyone would disagree with these (obviously true) statements is kind of incredible to me.

Because it's written in python

by typon 5y ago

Because it's written in python

Re-writing it in C wouldn't automatically make much of a difference. Of course a C implementation wouldn't be slower (at minimum you could flatten out the byte-code sequence and use the generated C api calls), but it wouldn't necessarily be noticeably faster. Given the features of the python version, it might very well be the case that writing the same code in C wouldn't speed things up if the same use-cases were supported. Though I would be curious to know if it actually would speed up significantly.

masklinn 5y ago
> Re-writing it in C wouldn't automatically make much of a difference. It probably would even with a line-for-line translation: you’d save all the interpreter overhead, function calls if there are any (I did not look), and most refcount traffic.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  Maybe. It's true you would save a certain amount of interpreter overhead and some refcount. How much that would help is not clear to me. So really I just see any speedups pure speculation honestly. Besides the interesting question isn't really whether it speeds up or not (it obviously will speed up at least a little bit with any non-sane implementation), but how _much_ it speeds up. If you gain 1% honestly who cares. If you gain 30%, then that's more interesting. And how close can you get with this more general version in C to the version in the blog post that is using a simplified implementation without all the extra features. Anyway I am curious to know the answer, but I don't personally feel like writing out the implementation. If you do, I'd be interested in seeing the results.
  - CogitoCogito 5y ago
    I'm a bit amazed I've received downvotes for this post. I'm saying (1) you don't know how much this will speed up by going to C without trying it and (2) you don't know how much of the speed up in this case comes from the OP having written it in C and how much comes from the fact that it's a different algorithm. The fact that anyone would disagree with these (obviously true) statements is kind of incredible to me.